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Can't get much worse than this for Toronto FC

There's no shame in losing. But this was a little like your kid brother beating you at arm wrestling. You'll never hear the end of it. In the aftermath of last night's tie with the Montreal Impact and their sudden demotion to Canada's second-best soccer team, Toronto FC were left reeling with disappointment.

There's no shame in losing. But this was a little like your kid brother beating you at arm wrestling. You'll never hear the end of it.

In the aftermath of last night's tie with the Montreal Impact and their sudden demotion to Canada's second-best soccer team, Toronto FC were left reeling with disappointment.

The veterans, who've known defeat and worse, were left slumped in their lockers.

"There's a lot of soul searching we need to start doing," Canadian goalkeeper Greg Sutton said afterward, a few weeks later than we needed to hear it.

In the run-up to the game, both sides were calling it the biggest in Canadian pro-soccer history. Toronto coach John Carver wisely talked up the Impact. In the aftermath, everyone on board the sinking ship TFC graciously praised the no-hopers from a league below who'd just handed them their collective hats.

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"I have to give them credit," Carver said later. "The best team's won."

The fans? They didn't show their manager's foresight.

"Who the f--- is the Impact?" they chanted last night. Your betters, for this year at least. How do you say that in French?

The Nutrilite Canadian Championship (at least our paint-everything-with-a-logo marketing approach is world class) features a minefield instead of a pitch for Toronto FC. It was, and will continue to be, a nightmare tournament around here. If Toronto wins, they merely meet low expectations. If they lose, well, they end up in the same state as last night.

With Major League Soccer continuing to stretch out the timeline for Vancouver and Montreal to enter the league, that means years more of potential embarrassment.

It won't ever get worse than last night. That's because everyone who's anyone in MLS was either on hand or paying close attention, with the All-Star Game only 48 hours away. Toronto's was brought low in front of the whole North American soccer world. It's a small family. And it's gossipy.

There won't be much time to feel sorry for themselves. Toronto FC is in serious trouble that only as-yet imaginary goalscorers can fix.

Three days earlier, after a similarly disappointing tie against San Jose, Carver lashed out at the media. Last night, he turned his angry post-game comments against his own players.

"What disappoints me is that I heard one or two of our players talking about Montreal being in a lower league. And that's rubbish," Carver said.

This was a thinly veiled reference to a quote in the press that had defender Tyrone Marshall referring to the USL as "a league that blows." Marshall later claimed, quite reasonably if you think about it, that he'd said "a league below us." Nonetheless, it was still used as blackboard fodder by the Impact.

Clearly tired of a month's worth of mediocrity or worse, Carver went on to name marquee names.

There was pointed criticism for captain Jim Brennan ("They got back into it with a set play. Poor marking (by) Jimmy Brennan. Guy runs across in front of him."). But that, at least, was about one play.

Carver went on to call into question, generally speaking, the effort of two of his stars.

On Amado Guevara: "He flits in and out of the game."

On Marvell Wynne: "This is a guy who's going away to play in the Olympics," Carver said, wonderingly.

The harshest words were saved for Jeff Cunningham, who seems at least halfway out the door at this club. In the 89th minute, Cunningham was caught flat-footedly ball watching as the go-ahead score sat invitingly a few inches in front of him on the Montreal goal line.

Asked what he was thinking as he watched, Carver said, "I'm thinking, `How's he scored 99 (career) goals?'"

Had he wanted to, there was plenty more blame to go round. Whether Toronto wants to talk about it or not, there was a chasm of difference in quality between these two teams.

The key difference was that one played for 90 minutes. The other started to coast after taking a very temporary 15th-minute lead.

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